sports sports sports sports

[El_Josharino]

The Jay-Hey Kid, baby. Shit is blowin' up like Chernobyl.

[davy]

One of the other things I like about this kid? He gives a decent interview!

[Thermofusion]

I gotta say, the Braves' batting lineup looks intimidating this year. Still kind of sore over losing McLouth to you guys.

Also, did you guys see this crazy play?

[davy]

Also, did you guys see this crazy play?

Holy shit, that's awesome.

[Thermofusion]

As fantastic as the between the legs glove flip was, I like how it was topped off with a bare-handed catch by the 1Bman, just for that extra bit of awesome

[davy]

I'm already majorly bummed that I have to wait another whole day before getting to watch the Braves again.

BASEBALL!

[coldforge]

Not baseball. Cricket. Or hockey. everyone loves hockey.

[Thermofusion]

So I've got Pirates tickets for next month, Orioles tickets for June. Have to go to Cincinnati for work in August, may try to take in a Reds game for the hell of it.

Also anybody have experience with ordering Mlb Gameday or whatever it is? How much it costs, are all the games in HD, etc

[donblood]

Also, did you guys see this crazy play?

Holy shit, that's awesome.

That made my day.  Fucking unbelievable.

[El_Josharino]

So I've got Pirates tickets for next month, Orioles tickets for June. Have to go to Cincinnati for work in August, may try to take in a Reds game for the hell of it.

Also anybody have experience with ordering Mlb Gameday or whatever it is? How much it costs, are all the games in HD, etc

If you mean MLB TV, then yes. That's the one where you can stream any game online, usually live. It's pretty great. You get access to every game, you can watch most of them live, and then the entire season is archived and you can watch any game at your leisure. There are a few restrictions: blackouts on certain regional teams, and during big national broadcasts. For example, I can't watch any Royals games live because they're "regional" for me, and then you can't watch the Sunday night game live (because ESPN paid MLB money to try to get you to watch it there) and I think you can't watch Saturday games that start after 3 PM (Fox did the same thing as ESPN) (You can watch the early Saturday games), but the blacked out games are available in the archive after they've been completed.
There are 2 tiers, the Basic is like 89 bucks for the season (or you can subscribe monthly, but there's no good reason to do that) and gets you all the games, not quite in HD but still good. Premium is like 20 bucks more and gets you all the games in HD (when available), DVR capabilities, you can watch up to 4 games simultaneously, choose from Home or Away broadcast so I don't have to listen to dipshit Mets commentators when the Braves are in New York (where with Basic it's always the home team broadcast), and you can tie it to your fantasy team and it will tell you when one of your players is doing stuff, and probably a few things I'm forgetting. So you want the Premium one.
This is the second season I've subscribed and I pretty much love it completely and will probably subscribe every year until forever.

If your question wasn't about this, but rather some satellite TV package or some nonsense, then I cannot help you.

[davy]

I thought about subscribing in lieu of having cable tv service one summer, but there was a Braves blackout so that was obviously a dealbreaker.

[El_Josharino]

Yeah, that's a bummer. You can still watch 'em, just not live. Which is okay, but watching it live is the whole idea.
Me, I'm only missing the Royals. "I wouldn't say I'm MISSING them, Bob..."

Even if I had cable, I'd still order this shiz. In fact, we recently discovered that we have had free cable for probably almost 2 years and didn't realize it, and I watch this way more than I watch free cable.

[Thermofusion]

Hey thanks for the detailed response, Josh.

What I was originally asking about was the Extra Innings television package (couldn't remember the name of it). Did some fishing around earlier and found out there's a free preview through this weekend, so I checked it out. It looks like shit, honestly. All the games are in standard def; apparently Extra Innings is only available in HD on Dish Network—I have Time Warner Cable. The main MLB Network channel is in beautiful HD, but I get that anyway as part of my digital cable tier, so I'll be able to catch the handful of games they broadcast each week if I have the hankerin'

Starting to lean toward MLB.tv. How are you watching—just on your computer or are you outputting to your TV? If the latter, what method are you using?

Also, the Time Warner site indicated that Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals games are blacked out in my area, which I imagine would apply to MLB.tv also. Neither of those make sense to me in NC, where all my friends are longtime Braves fans. The Nationals, whatever, nobody cares about them, but the Orioles blackout is kind of a bummer, as they're my fave AL team.

That's also cool you can pick which commentary feed you want, that's another advantage over the cable package, and it's probably the feature I most appreciate on GameDay Audio.

[El_Josharino]

I've mostly been watching on my computer so far because I'm kinda lazy, but tomorrow night for Braves/Cubs game 2 a couple buddies are coming over to watch, so I'm going to plug it into either the TV or possibly our projector setup, which I'll do through a VGA - RCA adapter thingamajig that my roommate has, which will let me treat the TV as a computer monitor.

[Thermofusion]

Ah well. I called TWC yesterday out of morbid curiosity re: the price for MLB Extra Innings, with every intention of not ordering it and...I got played. Sales guy casually asks me who my favorite team is, I respond "them Pirates", and he starts chatting me up about Bobby Bonilla, Andy Van Slyke, the whole Jim Leyland era, lowering my guard, and then at the emotional climax of my nostalgic rambling he says "Man, this could be the year they bounce back, you can't miss it!" , then says he'll cut an additional ten bucks off the early bird rate and break my payment up into four segments. Guy ignored the sales script, got me hyped up about my team first, then exploited me at my weakest point in the conversation by offering the usual discounts and making it sound like he was personally doing me a favor. You know, the usual stuff, but he was so good that I pulled the trigger mainly out of respect for his ability as a salesman. Eight units, Mountain View, you closed the cocksucker, here's your Cadillac.

Maybe next year, mlb. tv

[davy]

Agh, Braves. 13-inning heartbreaker.

[El_Josharino]

Thermo, that McCutchen cat that your Pirates have in center is a stud. On behalf of the Braves, we'll trade you McLouth back for him.

[Thermofusion]

As a Pirates fan, I've had to endure a great many trades in the ongoing gamble of rebuilding our prospects system, but I hope to hell they wouldn't be stupid enough to trade McCutchen. I don't think they're that stupid, but you never know with the Pirates. But yeah, he is definitely a stud, a great all-around utility player and possibly one of the cornerstones of a new, slightly less futile era, esp. if they call up Pedro Alvarez later this year. I think we're fine without McLouth--I just miss him.

[davy]

McLouth is fancy in the outfield. I just wish his bat would wake up.

[Chet]

This Barcelona team are a joy. I actually feel privileged to be alive to watch them play Football. It is beautiful.

A friend of mine game up with a keeper of a quote when describing Barcelona "they are the best in the world at playing triangles. they are inventing new triangles."

[Chet]

and for all the talk of Messi - who could be seriously given consideration as the greatest ever if he takes his seasons form into the world cup this summer - i'd put foward the argument that xavi is as equally talented, ableit in a much more understated way. the complete midfielder.

[Chet]

i mean, just try and tell me this isn't just supremely beautiful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS1TgoF8htg

[Good Intentions]

That video is over a ear old, and if we're going to play that game, you should see this from the same period. Barca vs Liverpool, and in a 3-minute passage of play Liverpool touch the ball twice: once as someone puts a toe in to disrupt a Barca movement, and the second time as the goalie picks the ball out of the net.

[kyle]

i mean, just try and tell me this isn't just supremely beautiful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS1TgoF8htg

Supremely. They're so good at that sport. I'm not jumping on the Barca bandwagon, but I love watching them play. I'm hoping Sneijder and Eto'o can give them a run for their money on Tuesday. We'll see.

[donblood]

I don't know anything about football (or american football, for that matter), but yeah, that was gorgeous.  "Here, what will you do with this ball?"  "I'll give it back to you, what will you do?"  "I'll play with it for a second and give it to this other guy."  Meanwhile, the opposition are tiring themselves the fuck out.  Just awesome.